


The Workshop

by TheAmazingOntos



Series: Change [16]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Magic Revealed, Mild Language, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:15:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28731798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingOntos/pseuds/TheAmazingOntos
Summary: Explaining why not to be in a relationship with me.
Series: Change [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960861





	The Workshop

"Why do I feel so tired?" I moan while dragging myself out of bed, still half asleep. My body feels heavy, and slow to respond to my commands. I make it to the bathroom and get the day started, no matter how much I'd rather not. 

Right before I step back out, however, I remember something odd about my bed. It was unusually warm and sunken on one side, almost as if..., no, couldn't be. I'd remember if I invited someone into my bed, especially since I haven't had anyone to invite for almost a decade(wow, my friend was right, that's a hell of a dry spell). Shrugging off that feeling, I walk back into my bedroom and stop, staring in shock at what should have been an empty bed.

"Morning. How do you sleep on this mattress? The floor's probably softer than this. Do I have something on my face?" Shivani asks, as she walks past me to the bathroom. "You wouldn't happen to have a spare toothbrush, would you? That feels like a no, or it might just be you panicking over nothing. We didn't screw, and even if we did, I came here on my own."

She emerges from the bathroom, leans against the door frame and looks up into my eyes. "Aww, that's sweet, but you really didn't need to worry. I'm a good healer, so I can keep myself from getting pregnant if I don't want to. That's not what worries you, interesting. Hmm, are you afraid of me? Yes?! Still? Why?!"

I stumble backwards to the bed and sit, as she advances on me. She stops very close, enough that I could reach out and touch her. It would be so easy to stretch my arm out and pull her to me if I wanted. And I do, more than anything. I just can't bring myself to do it, so instead I leave my hands at my sides and take a deep breath. I have to give the 'It's not you, it's me' speech and make her understand that she'll be better off without me. 

"I'm not afraid of you, specifically. I'm afraid of getting too close to you. You're wonderful, and it'd be so easy to fall in love with you. Then, when you get bored of me, you'd leave and I'd have my heart torn out. I'm not sure if I can face that again. Seeing you and not being able to hold you would make a death by a thousand cuts trivial by comparison. Tanalus would have it easy next to me, because he doesn't need what he can't have like I would need you. Compared to you, everything else would fade into insignificance," I mumble, because I didn't want to tell her. Every woman I've cared for exploited this part of me, and I don't want her to be like them.

"First off, you shouldn't be falling in love that easy. Second, if I did want to be with you, I wouldn't just dump you after. Third, you have a few issues to work on, about your exes before you get into another relationship. I came here last night because you looked sad, and you might need a friend. Lastly, who's Tanalus?" She asks me as she sits next to me on the bed, with her shoulder touching mine. 

"Tanalus was a Greek dude who ended up in turbo Hell, to paraphrase. What makes him important is how he was tortured there. He was chained to an apple tree in the middle of a pool of water. When he became hungry, the apples on the tree would move just out of reach. When he got thirsty, the water would lower itself so he couldn't get a drink. It's the torture of wanting something and having it just out of reach, forever. Also, it's not exes, it's ex. I've only been in one relationship, and she said I was defective when she left me. I don't know what's wrong with me, so I can't fix it, so I'm still defective and you'd get fed up of being with me," I say lightly, having told myself that every day for almost a decade. 

She feels the old pain behind the words, and the deeper ones that I don't even notice anymore, and she pulls me into a hug. I can feel her shoulders tense, and I hear her muffled sobs as she sheds tears for me that I can't even summon anymore. We remain like that for a long time, not moving. 

\------

She goes to her room eventually, and I head down to the office to find Austin. Since he's my handler, he can find something for me to do. Hopefully something that will keep me from thinking too much, because it might be too late for me with Shivani. 

Unfortunately for me, he reads me like an open book, and we go to the Defence Force's armoury. They have a nurse waiting, who draws a pint of my blood and gives me the packs. From there, I walk into a room with a work bench, a bullet press(similar to a loading tool for hand loads, but it cuts a rune into the round), a shallow bowl and cases of ammunition.

"This is simple work. You can talk to me about the look on your face and finish enchanting these rounds at the same time. We're here every day until this room is empty, and maybe another room like it after. Don't waste our time saying nothing's wrong, either. You look like you want to cry, or go get stinking drunk. I just don't want you to hurt yourself," he finishes as he settles onto one of the cases.

Eventually, he pulls the story from me, but it takes a long time and a lot of patience from him. At the end, he says, "She's right, you do need to work out those issues. Didn't your shrink get any of this sorted during ALL the time you went to therapy?"

"No, she didn't. I couldn't make myself trust her with this. Depression is easy to talk about, because it's documented and they can treat it. There's no pills I can take to stop being a whiny little simp, and talking about it doesn't make it less so," I respond, while I continue cutting runes into ammunition, dipping them into my blood and then into a thin sealant after it dries. The repetition is good, because I can lose myself in it if I try, and I'd rather do that over think about... feelings. 

"You don't really think you're a simp, do you?" he asks, watching me closely. It's a little disconcerting, and I feel that he knows the answer but wants me to say it. Tough luck for him, though, because I've reached the point where I shut down, and nobody can get me to talk.


End file.
